


Campfirelight, Campfire Stories.

by minxy



Category: Stargate SG-1
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-21
Updated: 2014-07-21
Packaged: 2018-02-09 19:01:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,277
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1994250
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/minxy/pseuds/minxy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They were like kids, on an alien planet, discussing the galactic implications of squashing bugs. Maybe it’s how they stayed sane.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Campfirelight, Campfire Stories.

“He’s very still, isn’t he?” Cameron spoke in a low voice, musing, so Jackson could ignore him if he wanted. “Zen.”

“Until he’s not.” Daniel had glanced up briefly when Mitchell spoke from his crouch by the fire, flicked his eyes over Teal’c standing on watch at the perimeter, and back down to his journal in a series of staccato beats that might have been dismissive. Cameron still couldn’t read the guy, his attention was so often elsewhere; those famed first contact, diplomatic skills never focused on the newest member of his team.

Teal’c seemed so much warmer by comparison; consistent, someone you could rely on to tell you where you stood, how to fix what you’d screwed up, to look out for you regardless with that unflappable calm.

Jackson was infinitely more alien, as far as Cameron was concerned.

“He’s lived two lifetimes compared to us.” Daniel mused, the scratch of his pen over the journal pages having paused for a moment. Cameron assumed that they were thinking about the same thing, same guy, whatever; but he was always ready to revise assumptions where Jackson was concerned. “Three, if you count the time that he wasn’t sleeping.”

“Ah yes, the kel no’reem school of efficient time management.” Cameron broke a twig and tossed it randomly into the campfire, glancing at Jackson in his peripheral vision as he tried to make himself stop watching Teal’c. Teal’c was calming in a way Daniel wasn’t, and fascinating in ways Cam could barely name. Daniel was… a pretzel; twisted around the journal like it was the center of the universe, could fix everything if only the right words were written. Maybe it could.

Daniel was pursing his lips, hand poised over his journal as he straightened his back for a moment and briefly gave Cameron’s words his attention. “I used to think he was bored with us and just sleeping sitting up.” He pouted again as if revisiting his mistake, but repositioned his hand on the page as Sam’s bootsteps crunched the dry grass around the campfire, and resumed writing in time with her pacing.

“What’s up?” Sam asked easily as she segued gracefully to a seat next to her pack and searched out some purification tablets for the water she’d just brought.

“I forget sometimes that you guys didn’t have a cheatsheet on Jaffa cultural relations when you started.” Cam said, thinking of the Sodan and half wondering if he could have done it cold, with no intel on the Jaffa in general and their honor systems; if they’d seemed truly alien and not just plain folk.

If he were meeting them for the first time in history, trying to convince a Jaffa to turn against everything he knew to help strangers and aliens. That was much more impressive than convincing them to protect themselves, Cam thought; he wished he knew what O’Neill had done to move Teal’c like that.

“Nothing like being the first to make all the mistakes.” Sam said with the hint of a smile under it. He appreciated it, the way she kept reminding him of her fallibility; he wasn’t entirely sure it wasn’t for her own benefit as well.

“People only remember the first and the best.” Cam said, sitting back off his haunches and relaxing against a pleasant enough rock. “Everyone else is just marking time.”

“Everyone else is the hero of their own story,” Sam said, hands working, organizing, fixing, sorting. “It may not get its own chapter in a history book but stepping on a cricket has profound implications for the cricket.”

“How very Buddhist of you.” Daniel smiled sideways at her, still mostly only showing Cameron the top of his head where he sat.

“I hang out with amateur philosophers,” Sam said, grinning, tongue poised right behind her teeth like she was repressing the urge to stick her tongue out like a kid.

A kid on an alien planet discussing the galactic implications of squashing bugs. Maybe it’s how they stay sane.

“No point in aiming for history books,” Daniel said, pointedly, “That would require disclosure.”

“Not to mention that most people don’t live to see their names in textbooks anyway.” Cameron checked his watch. “But you and Sam still write your research papers, just in case.”

He stood up under Daniel’s suddenly focused attention, and went to call Teal’c to supper.

Not that he needed to; Teal’c would likely have noticed that they had broken out the MREs and silently strode over purposely whenever it suited him, but Cameron liked the camaraderie of gathering together.

He liked the one on one time too, when he didn’t feel like the guy without as much history on the team, and liked the idea that maybe it mattered, putting forth the effort, rather than just calling on the radio.

“Does this feel normal to you, being offworld?” He asked Teal’c after walking up, turning and walking back a few yards in companionable silence. “You’ve been going through the Stargate longer than we have; is it all old hat now?”

“There are many things that are routine about missions through the Stargate,” Teal’c said after a step. “There are many things that remain surprising, even as they become comfortable.”

“Like living on Earth, I suppose; that’s off-world for you.” He walked in Teal’c’s footsteps, so as to make less noise in the dry grass.

“I am accustomed to making myself comfortable in the quarters I am given, on whatever world,” Teal’c said easily, “It is the Taur’i need to continually speak of one’s experiences that I find least ‘normal’; not since my wife and son have I been so continually pressed to tell of my travels.”

Cameron was pretty sure he could hear a smile deep in Teal’c’s voice, and he grinned in response as they made their way back to the others. “Can I help it if I find campfire stories that much more fascinating when you’re telling them?”

“You do not wish to tell your own campfire stories, Colonel Mitchell?” Teal’c asked as they made their way into camp.

“Less relevant in the grand scheme of things, Teal’c. My pie crust recipe isn’t likely to be much help out here in the big, bad universe, story-wise.”

“I don’t know about that,” Sam joined in. “I’d like to know how you charmed all those Sodan, especially when the corn-job plan was…”

“Less than charming?”

“I wasn’t going to say that.” She smiled at him. It was nice to be the same rank; fewer teasing-one’s-superior or inferior issues made for better camaraderie.

“Yes, you were,” he sang back at her, claiming a compass point direction around the fire and settling in, “And that was not my fault.”

“I’d like to know how you learned Mandarin,” Daniel interrupted, as if sensing a conversation redirection. Cam scowled at him. Sam smiled brightly. Oh, they were good.

“Would you like to pipe up with a few personal questions, T? We’ll get a list going,” Cam said dryly.

“I have many questions,” Teal’c stated, and didn’t go on. Cam tilted his head a bit and tried to read his expression.

Fine then, at least Teal’c was going to wait and ask one-on-one, though Cam was privately just a little worried about what a Jaffa interrogation might entail, but that was a thrill for another day.

He caught a flash of light in his peripheral vision as the fire glanced off Jackson’s glasses and realized the man had put down his ubiquitous journal. That had to count for something.

“If I’m telling stories tonight, I get the good MRE,” He announced, “The mac and cheese tastes awful cold.”

**Author's Note:**

> thanks to rydra_wong, sina qua non


End file.
